“The tanks delivered by NATO to Ukraine are burning. The same will be the case for the F-16s”, declared Friday June 16 Vladimir Putin during a speech in front of the economic forum in Saint Petersburg, in the north- western Russia. After having long refused to deliver these modern fighter jets to avoid an escalation of the conflict, the United States gave the green light last month to the delivery of F-16s that Kiev had tirelessly demanded.
One of the questions that also arises in the event of delivery of F-16s to Ukraine would be to find safe bases for them to take off, land and be repaired, while several Ukrainian airfields have been bombed by Russia. The idea of stationing these planes on the air bases of neighboring countries supporting Ukraine is sometimes mentioned. If the devices delivered to kyiv “are on bases outside Ukraine, we will see what to do about these bases, how to hit them”, threatened Vladimir Putin. “There is a significant risk for NATO to be dragged further into the conflict,” he added.
The delivery schedule for these American-made planes and their number have not been decided at this stage. Brussels announced at the end of May that Poland had already started training Ukrainian pilots.
Russian nuclear warheads delivered to Belarus
Also during this speech, the Russian president announced that he had transferred the first nuclear weapons to Belarus, concretizing the deployment announced in March by Moscow. “These are only the first, by the end of the summer, the end of the year, we will completely, completely complete this work,” he promised. Putin recalled that the “deployment of tactical nuclear weapons” in Belarus was the result of an agreement announced in March with President Alexander Lukashenko. According to him, it is a deterrent to “those who think of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia”.
“We have no reason to adjust our nuclear posture. We see no indication that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in response on Friday.
Putin proclaims ‘the end of dreadful neocolonialism’
The Russian leader also took advantage of his speech to proclaim the end of “ugly neocolonialism” in international politics and welcomed Moscow’s economic strategy, after the breakdown of most relations with the West. “The dreadful neocolonial system of international relations has ceased to exist, while the multipolar world order is gaining importance, he greeted. It is inevitable”. Vladimir Putin regularly attacks what he presents as American hegemony in international politics and tries to present the invasion of Ukraine by his troops as a battle against Western decadence.
He went on to call his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jew, a “shame on the Jewish people”, again accusing Ukraine of “blaming those bastards as neo-Nazis” and treating Nazi collaborators during the Second World War as heroes. World War. “We have every right to consider the goal of denazification of Ukraine as one of the key objectives,” he added.
Volodymyr Zelensky ruled out any negotiations with Moscow
Volodymyr Zelensky rejected on Friday June 16 the mediation proposed by a delegation of African presidents who came to meet him in Kiev, denouncing a “deception” by Moscow, and again excluding any negotiation with Russia. “I made it clear during our meeting with the African delegation that allowing any negotiations with Russia now, when the occupier is on our land, means freezing war, freezing pain and suffering,” he said. declared.
The delegation is led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and also includes Senegalese President Macky Sall, Zambian leader Hakainde Hichilema and Azali Assoumani, Head of State of the Comoros and Head of the African Union, as well as Congolese, Ugandan and Egyptian representatives. After kyiv, the African mediation must head for Russia, where it must meet Vladimir Putin this Saturday, June 17 in Saint Petersburg. Putin, for his part, assured that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had “no chance” of succeeding, and that Western countries would be forced to return to him, on his terms. “And we’ll see when and what we can talk to them about,” he said.
The Ukrainian air force said on Friday morning that it shot down 12 Russian missiles, including six hypersonic Kinjals, over the capital region during the African mediation visit. Missile shrapnel injured seven people, including two children, near kyiv, police said. “What happened today” shows African leaders “how sincere Putin is about ending the conflict” and the consideration he gives to “all international efforts to stop this conflict”, said commented the spokesperson for the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell.
Ukraine invited to the first NATO-Ukraine council in Vilnius
If Ukraine will not be invited to join NATO at the Vilnius summit, the Alliance wishes to hold on this occasion the first meeting of the new NATO-Ukraine council with Volodymyr Zelensky, indicated Friday the secretary general of the NATO, Jens Stoltenberg. “We are working on the creation of a new NATO-Ukraine Council in which Ukraine will be on an equal footing with the NATO Allies”, he declared after a meeting Alliance Defense Ministers in Brussels. The first edition will therefore take place in Vilnius on July 11 and 12.
This new council will allow consultation and decision-making on security issues of mutual interest, explained Jens Stoltenberg. Relations between NATO and Ukraine are currently handled within a commission created in 1997, which is a consultation body. “Ukraine will become a member of NATO at some point,” he repeated. “But she will not receive an invitation to Vilnius,” he warned, the invitation being the first step in the membership process.
Washington releases $205 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine
The United States on Friday announced a further $205 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine to help Ukrainians deal with shortages caused by the war with Russia. The aid must be used to provide basic necessities such as food, drinking water or even in the field of education and health, according to a press release from the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken. This new sum brings the total of American humanitarian aid to Ukraine to two billion dollars since the start of the war, recalls the text.
It will be distributed through partner NGOs in the region, and should also allow victims of the conflict to stay in touch with their families in the event of the numerous separations due to the war, the statement said. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, more than six million people have fled the country and more than 5 million have been internally displaced, according to figures cited by the US State Department .